The Society for Nautical Research awards the Anderson medal every year to the author who has written the best book on maritime history published during the previous year. This year it will be the Society’s great pleasure to award the medal to James Goldrick, for his book Before Jutland: The Naval War in Northern European Waters, August 1914-February 1915.

The event will take place in the Lecture Theatre at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London SE10 9NF Arrival and refreshments from 16.30; presentation of the award and lecture at 18.00 followed by a reception. If you would like to attend please RSVP to ldejager@rmg.co.uk

Thursday, 20 April to Saturday, 22 AprilQueen’s House Conference: European Court Culture and Greenwich Palace, 1500-1750

Royal Museums Greenwich and the Society for Court Studies are pleased to announce a major international conference to mark the 400th anniversary year of the Queen’s House, Greenwich. Designed by Inigo Jones in 1616 and completed in 1639, this royal villa is an acknowledged masterpiece of British architecture and the only remaining building of the 16th and 17th-century palace complex. Today the Queen’s House lies at the centre of the World Heritage Site of Maritime Greenwich.

The site as a whole is often celebrated as quintessentially ‘British’ – historically, culturally and artistically. Yet the sequence of queens associated with the Queen’s House and Greenwich more generally reflect a wider orientation towards Europe – from Anne of Denmark, who commissioned the House, to Henrietta Maria of France, Catherine of Braganza and Mary of Modena – in addition to Greenwich’s transformation under the patronage of Tudor and Stuart monarchs. Located on the River Thames at the gateway to London and to England, royal residences at Greenwich served an important function in the early modern period as a cultural link with the continent, and in particular, with England’s nearest neighbours in the Low Countries and France.

Conference themes include: Royal portraiture; ‘Princely magnificence’ and the design of royal spaces (such as the division between a King’s and Queen’s sides); dynastic links between the houses of Stuart, Orange, Bourbon, Wittelsbach (Palatinate), and Portugal; the history of Greenwich Palace as a royal residence and centre of power and culture; other areas patronized by the court, such as maritime exploration, scientific advances, prints, as represented by the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

Jan Rüger talks about his new book Heligoland: Britain, Germany and the Struggle for the North Sea.

On 18 April 1947, British forces set off the largest non-nuclear explosion in history. The target was a small island in the North Sea, fifty miles off the German coast, which for generations had stood as a symbol of Anglo-German conflict: Heligoland. Drawing on a wide range of material, Jan Rüger explores how the two nations have collided and collaborated in this North Sea enclave. For much of the nineteenth century, this was Britain’s smallest colony, an inconvenient and notoriously discontented outpost at the edge of Europe. Situated at the fault line between imperial and national histories, the island became a metaphor for Anglo-German rivalry once Germany had acquired it in 1890. Turned into a naval stronghold under the Kaiser and again under Hitler, it was fought over in both world wars. Heavy bombardment by the Allies reduced it to ruins, until the Royal Navy re-took it in May 1945. Returned to West Germany in 1952, it became a showpiece of reconciliation, but one that continues to wear the scars of the twentieth century.

Tracing this rich history of contact and conflict from the Napoleonic Wars to the Cold War, Heligoland brings to life a fascinating microcosm of the Anglo-German relationship. For generations this cliff-bound island expressed a German will to bully Britain; and it mirrored a British determination to prevent Germany from establishing hegemony on the Continent. Caught in between were the Heligolanders and those involved with them: spies and smugglers, poets and painters, sailors and soldiers.

Heligoland is the compelling story of a relationship which has defined modern Europe.

Friday and Saturday, 21-22 July 2017Conference: Mapping the past, exploiting the future: cartographies and understandings of the Arctic

Royal Museums Greenwich will host an interdisciplinary conference which aims to interrogate the processes and products of mapping the Arctic, to coincide with the opening of a major new exhibition, Death in the Ice: the shocking story of Franklin’s final expedition, about John Franklin’s voyage to look for a North-West Passage, and the searches for those involved which followed. At a moment when the story of Franklin’s 1845 expedition is being exploited by various commercial and political interests, we seek to broaden and deepen our understanding of voyages of exploration, surveying and mapping practices, and their subsequent narration.

Keynote lecture by Professor Adriana Craciun, University of California, Riverside.
For more information and a draft programme contact research@rmg.co.uk

About the Author

Dr Samuel McLean is the Social Media Editor for GMH. He completed his PhD at King's College London in 2017, and is an active member of the Canadian Nautical Research Society.